Playing Politics With Our Future

Dear Friends,

"This is not a conservative administration," Hillary told supporters in New York this week. "There is nothing conservative about it. It is radical. It is upending. It is undermining our constitutional democracy."

As the New York Sun reported, Hillary "attacked the Bush administration...for playing politics with gay marriage, ignoring global warming, and failing in both Iraq and New Orleans."

Here is some of what she said:

[W]hen I travel around and speak with people who I represent, and hear about everything from terrorism to gas prices to childhood health care to energy independence to global climate change to affordable housing - there's a long list - but this is not on the list.

It is unfortunately on the list for the political machine of the White House and the Republican majority, and so I hope that as we weigh the campaign for re-election and I try to help elect Democrats around the country to take back one or two houses of Congress, we will all stand up and be counted.

We will all stand up for a return to fiscal responsibility that will give us a chance to make the right decisions and investments that will make our country richer and stronger in the future. We will stand against the wrongheaded decisions that are being made by the administration and Congress that are slashing so many of the programs to the most vulnerable among us and not giving people the confidence to make smart investments in energy independence and protecting ourselves against global climate change...

...[I]t's not enough to just hope that we're going to have better relations around the world. ... We need to be willing to stand up and fight up for those values. And here at home, we need to continue to protect and nurture that which had made America great and has made it the envy of the world.

Now there is a way to track down terrorists that is within the rule of law and not outside of it. We know that our civil liberties and our right to privacy and our individual freedoms are not a luxury - they are what set us apart from the rest of the world. Our respect for the rule of law is what makes America unique and gives us the confidence to defend against our government, to be politically active and fight for causes that we think are important. We cannot allow our constitutional democracy to be eroded. We can have global security and liberty.

...And we all need - Republicans, Democrats, and Independents - we all need to stand together and make it very clear that we will not go back. As I travel around our state, I'm encouraged by the number of the people who come to my events who say they didn't support me last time and tell me that they are Republican, and I always say, "We're glad you're here. Welcome." And I also ask them, "Well, why are you here?" And they always say something like, "I didn't sign up for all of this."

They didn't sign up for a government that interferes with personal, private, intimate relations.

...They didn't sign up to be the largest debtors in the history of the world where we have to borrow $60 billion a month from China, Japan, and others.

They didn't sign up for the United States government who totally dismantled the Federal Emergency Management Agency and battled with colleagues and didn't know what to do.

They didn't sign up for the mean-spirited divisiveness against gays and lesbians, and tried to make it somehow a political issue as to the life you lead and who you are.

...They didn't sign up for a president who denies global climate changes and refuses to deal with reality of what is happening in our world that has far-reaching consequences for our children and our children's children.

...[I]f we don't take back one or both houses of Congress, we cannot change the direction of the country; we cannot convince the administration of the Republican majority to make decisions based on evidence, not ideology.

We can't deal with what we need to do in Iraq if we don't have a Congress that can conduct investigations and make it absolutely clear that the administration, that their failure in Iraq has endangered not only our men and women in uniform, not only the Iraqi people, but the entire region.

...[W]e can begin working together again - rebuilding the consensus we had in this country until relatively recently about what we needed to do, to build a strong America at home and aboard.

To read the entire speech, please go to http://www.hillaryclinton.com/speech/view/?id=908. And thank you, as always, for your friendship. With so much at stake in the 2006 elections, your support is more important than ever!

Sincerely,

Ann F. Lewis

Tags: Hillary, Hillary Clinton, Global Warming, Iraq, New Orleans, Gay Marriage, Bush, Terrorism, Fiscal Responsibility